jwd98056
Sep 13th, 2006, 1:21 am
Yahoo!! :yeah: I just got back from CCR today. Rufus did the job with zero problems though my iPod/Dension setup did lock up four or five times but that is not the bikes problem and it wasn't really that big of a problem. I still had 10GB of music stored on my Lowrance iWay 500c to fall back on. The iWay did have a few momentary brain farts along the way but it always recovered within 30 seconds with a power cycle and that also was never an issue.
My four week trip covered 23 different States with nine of them being transited more than once. My total mileage was 8912 miles and I averaged 44.6 MPG pulling my Zenith trailer. I purchased a total of 199.23 gallons of gas at a total coast of $568.34. I put new Metzler ME880s on at the beginning of the trip and I pretty much used up the rear. I will get it replaced in the next week or week so.
My longest day was the Saturday I left the CCR. It ended up being 1060 miles with 18 hours in the saddle. It wasn't planned that way but I couldn't get a motel room anywhere in Western Arkansas due to a motorcycle rally in Hot Springs so I pushed on through to Henryetta, OK. It took 18 hours because I did the Talladaga Scenic Byway (Alabama) in the morning and I ran the Talimena Scenic Byway (Arkansas/Oklahoma) at night. I will tell you now the Talimena was very dark and very slow even with all the extra lighting on Rufus. I truly wish I could have run the Talimena in the day because it seemed like a great road though I don't have a clue what the scenery looked like :).
Some of the extremes of the trip included a low temperature of 31° F (Rocky Mountains National Park) and a high of 100° F (The Badlands). That low temperature was also accompanied by heavy sleet. I really only ran into bad weather in Missouri (heavy rain and thunderstorms between Kansas City and St. Louis) and in Northern Colorado (rain, sleet and thunderstorms). My Cycleport riding gear worked as advertised and I didn't even use the evaporative cooling vest I purchased for the trip.
The lowest altitude was probably my home at about 300 feet and the highest was Pikes Peak at 14,100 feet, and no Rufus didn't get to go to the top with me because I took the Cog Train. As previously stated my longest travel day was 18 hours and the shortest was zero, as in I was in seminars and the vendor exhibits all day ;).
Surprisingly I didn't end up riding with anyone else during any part of my trip. I met a lot of nice people and had a lot of great discussions but I just never hooked up with anyone. I did encounter a number of road jacka**es but much fewer than I was expecting. Surprisingly or not I would have to rate Colorado as the least motorcycle road friendly of those I rode through. There seems to be a large number of elderly drivers that don't have a clue what lane they are in and apparently turn signals went the way of the rest of their short term memory. One other interesting side note on Colorado is that they probably have the noisiest KOA camp ground on the planet just south of Colorado Springs. Not only was it right next to the freeway and in the flight path of an airport but it also was next to a railway line with at least two trains every hour blasting their horns at every road intersection. Trains, planes and automobiles, OH MY :crazy:. I had to buy ear plugs and I still didn't get a good nights sleep :(.
Rufus pulled the Zenith like a champ. Even on the tail of the dragon I just needied to be a little more cautious in braking on the corner approaches. Undedr acceleration I could hardly tell it was there. I got a lot of stares as well as questions about the Zenith and the LT along the way.
Here is the list of Scenic Byways and National Parks I ended up travelling:
Northwest Passage Scenic Byway
Pioneer Mountains Scenic Byway
Yellowstone National Park
Grand Teton National Park
Beartooth Pass
Buffalo Bill Scenic Byway
Medicine Wheel Passage
Devil's Tower National Monument
Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway
Peter Norbeck Scenic Byway
Mt. Rushmore National Monument
Custer State Park
Needles Hwy
Buffalo Grass National Grassland
Badlands National Park
Outlaw Trail (It is not called a scenic byway and now I understand why)
Ohio River Scenic Byway
Cherohala Skyway Scenic Byway
Tail of the Dragon (Deals Gap)
Great Smokey Mountain National Park
Talladaga Scenic Byway
Talimena Scenic Byway
Santa Fe Trail Scenic Byway
Frontier Pathways Scenic Byway
Gold Belt Tour Scenic Byway
Top of the Rockies Scenic Byway
Rocky Mountain National Park
Trail Ridge Road Scenic Byway
Dinosaur National Monument
Flaming Gorge
Sawtooth Mtn. Scenic Byway
Ponderosa Pine Scenic Byway
Hells Canyon
Mt. Ranier National Park
It was great meeting many of you and I look forward to seeing all of you again at future CCRs. It was a great event and I had a great adventure.
My four week trip covered 23 different States with nine of them being transited more than once. My total mileage was 8912 miles and I averaged 44.6 MPG pulling my Zenith trailer. I purchased a total of 199.23 gallons of gas at a total coast of $568.34. I put new Metzler ME880s on at the beginning of the trip and I pretty much used up the rear. I will get it replaced in the next week or week so.
My longest day was the Saturday I left the CCR. It ended up being 1060 miles with 18 hours in the saddle. It wasn't planned that way but I couldn't get a motel room anywhere in Western Arkansas due to a motorcycle rally in Hot Springs so I pushed on through to Henryetta, OK. It took 18 hours because I did the Talladaga Scenic Byway (Alabama) in the morning and I ran the Talimena Scenic Byway (Arkansas/Oklahoma) at night. I will tell you now the Talimena was very dark and very slow even with all the extra lighting on Rufus. I truly wish I could have run the Talimena in the day because it seemed like a great road though I don't have a clue what the scenery looked like :).
Some of the extremes of the trip included a low temperature of 31° F (Rocky Mountains National Park) and a high of 100° F (The Badlands). That low temperature was also accompanied by heavy sleet. I really only ran into bad weather in Missouri (heavy rain and thunderstorms between Kansas City and St. Louis) and in Northern Colorado (rain, sleet and thunderstorms). My Cycleport riding gear worked as advertised and I didn't even use the evaporative cooling vest I purchased for the trip.
The lowest altitude was probably my home at about 300 feet and the highest was Pikes Peak at 14,100 feet, and no Rufus didn't get to go to the top with me because I took the Cog Train. As previously stated my longest travel day was 18 hours and the shortest was zero, as in I was in seminars and the vendor exhibits all day ;).
Surprisingly I didn't end up riding with anyone else during any part of my trip. I met a lot of nice people and had a lot of great discussions but I just never hooked up with anyone. I did encounter a number of road jacka**es but much fewer than I was expecting. Surprisingly or not I would have to rate Colorado as the least motorcycle road friendly of those I rode through. There seems to be a large number of elderly drivers that don't have a clue what lane they are in and apparently turn signals went the way of the rest of their short term memory. One other interesting side note on Colorado is that they probably have the noisiest KOA camp ground on the planet just south of Colorado Springs. Not only was it right next to the freeway and in the flight path of an airport but it also was next to a railway line with at least two trains every hour blasting their horns at every road intersection. Trains, planes and automobiles, OH MY :crazy:. I had to buy ear plugs and I still didn't get a good nights sleep :(.
Rufus pulled the Zenith like a champ. Even on the tail of the dragon I just needied to be a little more cautious in braking on the corner approaches. Undedr acceleration I could hardly tell it was there. I got a lot of stares as well as questions about the Zenith and the LT along the way.
Here is the list of Scenic Byways and National Parks I ended up travelling:
Northwest Passage Scenic Byway
Pioneer Mountains Scenic Byway
Yellowstone National Park
Grand Teton National Park
Beartooth Pass
Buffalo Bill Scenic Byway
Medicine Wheel Passage
Devil's Tower National Monument
Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway
Peter Norbeck Scenic Byway
Mt. Rushmore National Monument
Custer State Park
Needles Hwy
Buffalo Grass National Grassland
Badlands National Park
Outlaw Trail (It is not called a scenic byway and now I understand why)
Ohio River Scenic Byway
Cherohala Skyway Scenic Byway
Tail of the Dragon (Deals Gap)
Great Smokey Mountain National Park
Talladaga Scenic Byway
Talimena Scenic Byway
Santa Fe Trail Scenic Byway
Frontier Pathways Scenic Byway
Gold Belt Tour Scenic Byway
Top of the Rockies Scenic Byway
Rocky Mountain National Park
Trail Ridge Road Scenic Byway
Dinosaur National Monument
Flaming Gorge
Sawtooth Mtn. Scenic Byway
Ponderosa Pine Scenic Byway
Hells Canyon
Mt. Ranier National Park
It was great meeting many of you and I look forward to seeing all of you again at future CCRs. It was a great event and I had a great adventure.